If your desktop is anything like mine, you background photo is barely visible from the sea of icons have that been floating around since the last time you formatted. I guess if they weren’t piling up on the desktop it would be somewhere else, but at least then we probably wouldn’t have to look at them every day.

Luckily, we can stuff that clutter in a closet by hiding the icons on the desktop. Here’s how.

Open the Terminal located in /Applications/Utilities (or alternatively by searching for it in Spotlight).

Enter the following command at the prompt and press Enter. You can copy/paste the command just make sure it stays on one line.

defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop -bool false

Restart the Finder by entering the following command in the Terminal and pressing Enter.

killall Finder

The Terminal is case sensitive so be sure to respect uppercase and lowercase characters.

Exit the terminal by entering the following command and press Enter.

exit

Quit the Terminal application.

Your desktop will now be clean leaving you free to admire your desktop picture. You may still save files to the desktop and access them only you will have to do so in a Finder window.

Getting your desktop to show icons again is easily as simple.

Open the Terminal located in /Applications/Utilities (or alternatively by searching for it in Spotlight).

Enter the following command at the prompt and press Enter. You can copy/paste the command just make sure it stays on one line.

defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop -bool true

Restart the Finder by entering the following command in the Terminal and pressing Enter.